What Percentage of Football Matches End 0-0?

I hate 0-0 draws! I find it much easier to trade football on Betfair when there are plenty of goals flying in.

However, the Betfair exchange relies on differing opinions so that both sides of the book are matched. Therefore, when I'm looking to back goals, I need other football traders to disagree with me and go the other way. We both get our positions matched and the best trader comes out on top.

Personally, I find it very uncomfortable to sit here and hope for goals not to be scored, after all that's the whole point of the game! So if you're one of the traders who backs under 2.5 goals - thank you! I need you, you need me and Betfair needs us both.

0-0 draws impact all traders and a common question I'm asked is, what percentage of football matches end 0-0?

This is very easy for me to answer. 'Team Stats Trends' is one of the tools we have within our football stats database at Goal Profits, which tracks all sorts of stats for every league over the past decade - including 0-0 results.

Average Number of 0-0 Draws

Our 'Team Stats' software covers 45 winter leagues; everything from the English Premier League to the Australian A League.

Of course, we're only interested in leagues which go in-play on Betfair and have enough liquidity for trading in and out of the markets. Some of our 45 leagues have to be ignored on a Saturday afternoon when the likes of the English Premier League and German Bundesliga are sucking up all the market liquidity, but that's to be expected.

Taking all of these leagues into account the average number of matches ending 0-0 during the 2017/18 season was 8.0%.

Here are the seasonal averages over the past decade:

2008/09

2009/10

2010/11

2011/12

2012/13

2013/14

2014/15

2015/16

2016/17

2017/18

8.3%

8.2%

8.0%

8.3%

7.4%

7.8%

8.1%

7.8%

8.0%

8.0%

And here are the biggest European leagues by season over the past decade:

2008/09

2009/10

2010/11

2011/12

2012/13

2013/14

2014/15

2015/16

2016/17

2017/18

English Premier

11.1%

8.4%

6.6%

7.1%

9.2%

7.1%

8.2%

8.4%

7.1%

8.4%

French Ligue 1

10.5%

8.9%

11.6%

7.1%

8.7%

8.4%

8.9%

8.9%

7.7%

5.5%

German Bundesliga

4.9%

9.2%

4.6%

7.2%

6.5%

4.2%

9.2%

7.8%

6.2%

6.9%

Italian Serie A

4.5%

8.2%

8.9%

11.6%

8.9%

6.1%

7.9%

8.2%

5.0%

7.4%

Dutch Eredivisie

5.9%

6.2%

5.9%

3.3%

4.6%

3.9%

5.2%

3.9%

4.2%

4.2%

Spanish Primera

4.7%

8.2%

7.1%

8.7%

6.6%

8.4%

7.9%

6.6%

7.1%

7.4%

By the way... Team Stats also covers more than 20 summer leagues, so there's plenty of football trading action all year round!

Is it Worth Laying 0-0?

Betting exchange markets are extremely efficient and all of these stats are taken into account when prices are set.

Unless you are able to identify a clear edge - and take Betfair commission into account - I don't believe that it's possible to make a long-term profit by laying 0-0 as a straight bet.

As you can see above, the same leagues perform differently from season to season and even Barcelona have 0-0 draws now and again. Hit a 0-0 and you will need to find 10, 20 or even 30 winners just to get back to where you started!

Highest and Lowest Scoring Football Leagues

We can also look at the highest and lowest scoring leagues. If you're like me, then it's very useful to know the football leagues with most goals so that you can trade with more confidence. Or if you prefer to be on the other side of the book, then you will be interested in leagues which have fewer goals on average.

For these stats, I like to look at the average number of games which went over 2.5 goals and under 2.5 goals.

Read More about Football Trading

Lay the draw trading (also known as LTD) is still one of the most popular ways to trade football on Betfair. Here's everything you need to know to get started today, including betting vs trading, lay the draw exit strategies, insurance, Metaltone and more.

Correct score trading on Betfair - and other betting exchanges - is an exciting way to trade football. Here is your complete guide to getting started with the correct score market, including a few tips and tricks that the professionals use.

I don’t know of any websites which provide that info. Our Team Stats software looks at first goal times and goal scoring/conceding windows, but not in too much detail as goals are fairly random events with regard to timing. You can predict it to some extent, but it’s quite hit and miss.

Do you have any statistics on a team having two consecutive 0-0 draws? I’d estimate the chances of that happening to be around 1% at most, assuming matches to be independent events (in statistical terminology)